Giuliani accuses Mueller of unethical behavior in Cohen’s case

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, accused special counsel Robert Mueller of using unethical tactics to intimidate Michael Cohen into pleading guilty of lying to Congress .

“They obviously exerted a lot of pressure on him. Mr. Cohen unfortunately has a history of significant lies in the past,” Giuliani told host John Catsimatidis in an interview that aired Sunday on AM 970.

The former New York mayor said Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and any involvement by Trump campaign associates, is trying to pressure targets of his probe into turning on the president – at any cost.

“This isn’t a search for the truth. It’s a witch hunt. This is what is wrong with these special prosecutors an independent counsels. They think they are God,” Giuliani said. “They seemed to want to prosecute people at any cost, including the cost of ethical behavior and the rights of people.”

Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for Trump, admitted last Thursday that he lied to a congressional committee about the president’s real estate dealings in Moscow.

He testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 that Trump abandoned negotiations to build a Trump tower in Moscow in February 2016 before the Iowa caucuses.

But Cohen admitted that he continued to brief Trump and Trump’s family members about the project into June 2016, according to court papers that identify the president as “Individual 1.”

Giuliani also alleged Mueller was trying to force Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, to implicate the president for collusion, which Giuliani said never happened.

“They want [Paul Manafort] to give certain forms of evidence that would implicate the president in things that Mr. Manafort says are untrue,” Giuliani said. “And they are pressuring him, and creating a real risk that the man might commit perjury. This kind of pressure can create the risk of tainted testimony.”

The special counsel’s office last week dumped a plea deal Manafort signed with them in September because the longtime political operative “breached” the agreement because he lied to prosecutors “on a variety of subject matters.”

Manafort pleaded guilty to financial fraud as part of a plea deal to spare him from a federal trial in Washington, DC.

He had been found guilty a month earlier in federal court in Virginia of similar financial crimes.

Manafort is expected to be sentenced in early 2019.

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